


Empyrean Satellite

by Steampunktoy



Category: Homestuck, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Artificial Intelligence, Bad Hard Sci-Fi, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Drone Season, Multi, My First AO3 Post, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, alicorns, complete and utter crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4352480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steampunktoy/pseuds/Steampunktoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tavros Nitram discovers an interstellar secret involving severe violation of the laws of astrophysics, and also receives a lot of advice on the disease that is friendship.</p><p>May also involve aliens.  So many candy coloured aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Observation Platform

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely indulgent crack-fic of the worst possible kind.

You are Tavros Nitram and you are watching the ANAI - the Apiculture Network Artificial Intelligence interacting with Vriska Serket, which is a vast improvement on talking to her yourself.

 

It has been quite a while, nearly a perigee, since you have actually talked to any of your old ‘friends’ in person.  The only two trolls who understand that ‘AdiosToreador’ is a slave-AI are Equius - who guessed, given his knowledge of systems - and Sollux, who installed the Network in the first place and gave you a bunch of idiot-files to teach you how to train it to imitate you.  He thought the idea was hilarious and terrible and all at once.

 

It turned out to not be too hard, because bees, even computer bees, are animal-enough that you could communicate directly with them.  You are aware, yourself, that you have little aptitude for computers, or complex thought in general, or really anything.  You have long ago realised you are terrible at everything except Fiduspawn and talking to animals, but Sollux’s opinion of Vriska is, if anything, even worse than your opinion of yourself.  He did the install remotely, and gave you admin access to the console, and told you to select ‘Whatever would aggravate the appalling biitch the most’.

 

You did not choose those options, of course.  You do not want to aggravate Vriska.  That would likely be fatal.  Indeed, you have only survived so far because you desperately attempt not to aggravate anyone at all.  You are aware, of course, that this is very untroll-like behaviour, but the fact is that you find it painful and lonely talking to them.  None of them are very easy to impress or understand, and when you try to be cool and awesome, you end up making a fool of yourself.

 

For the first few sweeps, it never mattered that much.  You were just grubs, and no one was really that cool.  Karkat ranted, Gamzee stonered through life, Terezi licked things, and Aradia was your closest friend.  Then Vriska did what spiders do, and Aradia harassed her for it, and Bad Things Happened.  You think Sollux sort of blames you for it, but he blames Vriska more.  Out of all of them, you liked Aradia and Gamzee the most, but none of that really matters now.

 

The space station is quiet.  You used to listen to music, but more and more you have come to appreciate silence, to exist in a state of peace, and to take a very, very long time responding to anyone who talks to you personally.  The only people you do not let your ANAI speak to are Sollux and Equius, who almost never talk to you anyway.  When you do speak with them, you barely use your typing quirk anymore.

 

The ANAI is placating Vriska by making you seem jealous of her new relationship.  She is very much enjoying this.  She talks to it frequently, it must give her such an ego boost - you wish something could do that for you, but having watched it so often, you have become alert to the slight signs that usually signify an AI.  Nothing works anymore for that.  You have learned to recognise placebos.

 

AT: uH, YOU MEAN YOU’RE DATING...him?

AG: Well, of course, just 8ecause you’re 8ooooooooring doesn’t mean he is ::::)

 

Vriska is dating Gamzee.  You think it’s black, but the whole idea by itself is so damn weird that you are much happier letting the ANAI handle your simulated awkwardness, begging, and anger-cross-jealousy.  Gamzee used to troll you, but you told the ANAI not to simulate a romantic relationship with him, and it got awkward and the ANAI said some somewhat bizarre things, and then he got angry, like, terrifyingly furious, and…

 

Basically after that you flipped all the settings to simulate what people wanted from you, as long as it committed you to nothing and discouraged visitors.  That was easy.  Without Aradia, there was no one lower than you on the Hemospectrum, so everyone had someone to kick around and feel superior to.  You still have no idea what Karkat is, but you have some suspicions, and the fact is, no one gets that angry all the time unless they are high on the spectrum.  You think he just does not want to be associated with Eridan, which is fair enough - anyway, he has a crab lusus, so he’s absolutely a seadweller.

 

It feels weird, that being lonely and silent is much, much more comfortable than actually being with other trolls.  You have trained the ANAI to play fiduspawn with you, at least the electronic version, and you have a lot of fantasy books to read, and troll internet to watch.  You spend a lot of your time writing extremely detailed reports for the planet you are observing, that you are certain no one reads or bothers with.  You had the ANAI simulate a tealblood reviewing your reports in a very rigorous fashion, and you learned enough to write them in the most precise language possible.

 

You never submit a report now without getting the ANAI to critique it in detail, which means you have never failed an audit. You do not take especial pride in this - failing an audit would mean an investigation, which would mean execution.

 

Everything seems to mean execution, you ponder, watching fake bronze text scroll up the screen, with gloating cerulean following it, word by word.  Your paralysation would mean execution, if it were not for the fact that Equius’ robotics have let you get past on a technicality.  Your lack of ability to contribute genetic material would mean execution, if it was not for the fact that you are on such a remote observation satellite that the empire does not send drones so far.  Using an ANAI to communicate exclusively with your betters like Eridan and Gamzee would warrant execution, if anyone worked it out.

 

The space station is blessedly quiet, and the corridors are empty.  No bronze-blooded troll wants to be this far out, away from any glory amongst the Cavalreapers, away from the good sopor, the best intoxicants, fast software updates to a modus, away from their hatefriends and mates.  This is burgundy work, and technically beneath you, and it’s blessedly soft and far away.  Here, no one can get on your case about being in a four wheeled device when your increasingly failure-prone prosthetics have a fit, and the few who know, well, they argue with a computer half the time.

 

In a very real way, having Eridan insultingly offer you this most pathetic of awful observer positions has saved your life, and you are not ungrateful.  He meant it as an attack on your honour, but you have come to realise that honour is a matter for trolls who can afford to think about it.

 

The only current point of frustration is that you are due for a moult soon, which is undoubtedly going to mess with your prosthetics.  You have called Equius, and he has refused to declare whether he will come out and assist, which is not much of a surprise - you have nothing to offer him.  You have nothing to offer anyone, anymore.

 

Your reports go out, immaculate, so as avoid interest.  You have already alerted the tealblood that you will be entering [ecdysi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecdysis)s.  The instar is necessary for your survival, as your thorax cannot cope with the next stage of growth inside you.  No one really cares very much - ecdysis is normal for your age and blood colour, and the response indicated that no one expects much from you for the next three months.

 

AG: Coooooooome onnnnn, Toreasnore, what’s the point if you don’t react?

AT: uH, I JUST THINK IT’S OKAY IF YOU’RE HAPPY,

AT: i GUESS?

AT: i MEAN, uH, I NEVER EXPECTED TO GET YOU EVER, BACK I MEAN,

AG: You never had me in the first place ;;;;)

AT: yOU kNOW ME }:)

AG: Oh man, you are ssssssssuch a dork, UGH.

 

You stare out the window, as you feel the satellite’s engines flicker on.  Your four wheeled device rocks a little, and you start pushing it towards its locking pins, so as to avoid a hilarious and also extremely painful rolling around on the deck.

 

Geosynchronous orbit is something usually utilized for an observation platform, but that would be entirely fatal in this system, which is the whole reason you are watching this planet in the first place.  Generally, the Alternian Fleet is not going to bother with a planet with no sentient life forms at all, but this particular star system is just weird enough that some bean pusher scraped resources together to put a permanent observation satellite up hundreds of Sweeps ago.  You doubt the Condesce remembers.  She likely has more warlike things to concern her.

 

But you have reasons for really liking planet 1890181a.

 

1890181a has a little moon with appealing craters, and it has a cute yellow dwarf, a G-type main-sequence star.  It has no intelligent life, the potential development of which is also being monitored by your station, but there are no radio signals, or any other signs of industry from its inhabitants.  You are aware from the logs that a visit to the planet surface indicated there is a thriving ecosystem of hoofbeasts, featherbeasts, reptiles, and so forth.  There is a lot of vegetation, and the atmosphere is breathable, but there is no one to conquer, and the Empire does not care.  You cannot even really scan the surface, you can see nothing smaller than, say, a large island.

 

Your satellite would not exist if it was not for the fact that 1890181a is tidally locked with its star.  Which should make it even less habitable than usual, with one side permanently heated and the other frozen.

 

The ports on your satellite heat, hissing, and then the drives arc up one by one as the Apiculture that runs the station projects trajectories and calculates the safest passage.  You lean back, shifting down to secure yourself, and then feel the weightless kick as the engines burn blue.  For a moment, the magnetic distortion makes the broken nerves in your legs twist.

 

That was the first lunge.

 

Now comes the leap to avoid the gravitational disaster that is a yellow dwarf and a small moon behaving in a manner utterly contrary to physics.

 

Above you like something from one of your comics, the star orbits with insane speed around the vastly smaller 1890181a, and the moon shifts, not displaced, but operating under its own power.  They dance, as light as feathers, and while your ship crests and ploughs through the gravitational forces that somehow completely fail to tear the planet apart.

  
The sun moves, causing an artificial sunrise of the most luminescent and beautiful pink.


	2. Worth it, anyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tavros has a few issues with his Auto-responder AI.

Your life continues, constrained to a small space in a satellite with a non-working reconnaissance vehicle, bad artificial gravity, a recuperacoon that mostly fits your horns, and the industrious efforts of your ANAI, who is much better than you are at balancing a series of conversations with people who may or may not be kind of sociopathic. You are not quite sure about this specifically because sociopathy is an adaptive trait in trolls, and some of your friends do seem to make mistakes. But maybe you would be better off if you were dangerously violent and unpredictable?

You are eyeing the ANAI’s conversation with Gamzee, and feeling a little. Uncomfortable. A part of you is wondering if you should turn it off so you can talk to him in person. But then you would have to explain to Gamzee that he has been talking to a machine and not you. The old Gamzee would have found that hilarious.

This new one, conscripted, a young Subjugglator, seems a bit more. A bit more…

Judgemental. Not all the time. But. Sometimes, in a way that makes you feel both sad and mildly terrified.

TC: HeY, mOtHeRfUcKeR. WhAt tHe hElL Is uP WiTh mY BeSt fRiEnD?  
AT: oH YOU KNOW, jUST DOING MY, jOB, aND  
AT: wORKING ON THESE STRICT BEATS,  
AT: aND MAYBE ALSO TALKING TO PEOPLE, iN THE WAY THAT, uH, i DO,  
TC: YeAh, AbOuT ThAt tAvBrO, mY WiCkEd rEd sIsTeR TaLkEd mE Up aNd i gOt sOmE HaRsH WoRdS FoR YoU.  
AT: oH,  
TC: WhIcH Is tO SaY, mAyBe yOu sHoUlDn’t bE UpSeTtInG My mOsT AwEsOmE BaBe

You stare at the screen. Is it even possible to upset Vriska? No, that is not a thing. It is not a thing that is possible for you - you are so much less than a threat, it cannot be possible. There is a bit of a cringe as Gamzee confirms the status of their relationship - you would have guessed anything other than red, really. 

TC: WhEn yOu tOlD HeR YoU WiShEd sHe’d cUlLeD YoU InStEaD Of bEiNg aLl gRaCiOuS AnD LeTtInG YoU LiVe, MoThErFuCkEr.

The ANAI said what? Your fingers itch. But you let it keep talking for you. It is easier to let...things happen rather than feel that you have to take responsibility yourself. You always mess up. You are the failure, it is you.

TC: TuRnS OuT ShE FeLt yOu wErE BeInG An uNgRaTeFuL ShItBlOoD  
AT: Oh,  
AT: THAT IS, mOST CERTAINLY, a THING THAT I THINK I WAS,  
TC: YoU OwNiNg uP To iT, mOtHeRfUcKeR?  
AT: MOST DEFINITELY, uH, iF IT WOULD MAKE YOU BOTH HAPPY,  
AT: I WOULD OWN UP TO THAT THING, i DON’T WANT TO UPSET EITHER OF YOU,  
AT: ON ACCOUNT OF YOU BEING VERY AWESOME AND ALSO IMPORTANT,  
TC: YeAh, ThAt’s cOmPlEtElY TrUe, I’M JuSt lIkE...YoU SeEm rEaLlY.  
TC: DiFfErEnT ThEsE DaYs, LiTtLe bRo.  
AT: THAT WOULD BE BECAUSE, i HAVE ACCEPTED ALSO MY HEMOCASTE PLACE, aND BY VIRTUE OF MY STUPID NON-WORKING LEGS, tHAT EVEN WHEN THEY ARE HAVING AN OKAY DAY, nEED, uH, sTRUT-PROPS, i AM KIND OF JUST GLAD TO BE ALIVE,  
TC: AnD ThAt’s mOtHeRfUcKiNg aWeSoMe, BuT I KiNd oF MiSs…  
AT: mISS?  
TC: I KiNd oF MiSs tHe rApS? BuT MoStLy, Uh, LiL’BrO, tHaT YoU SaId tHaT ThInGs gOt sO In-tEnTs tHaT YoU CoUlD Be iNsPiReD By mY ReLiGiOn, Yo?  
TC: BeCaUsE WhIlE PaIlInG My rEdSiS Is mOsT AwEsOmE, sHe dOeSn’t gIvE A FuCk aBoUt mY ReLiGiOn.  
TC: BiTcH Is a hErEtIc.  
TC: AnD My mOsT AwEsOmE KaRkAt mIgHt hAvE BrOkEn uP WiTh mE.

That is definitely not a thing that makes you happy at all. Karkat might be an asshole that you still do not especially like after the cliff incident, and your attempt to call for help. But he seemed to be really good for Gamzee. 

TC: :o(  
TC: AnD We wErE ReAlLy gOoD FrIeNdS, rIgHt, BrOtHeR? YoU CoUlD MaYbE SeE YoUr wAy tO SpEnDiNg sOmE. QuAlItY RaPpInG TiMe wItH Me?  
AT: ,,,  
AT: ,,,  
AT: WHILE THAT, uH, iS A THING THAT IS TRUE, uH,  
AT: I AM REASONABLY SURE THAT, uM,  
AT: I JUST REALLY LIKE YOU BOTH,  
AT: AND THERE IS THIS MORE, uMMM, pERSONAL THING, aND,  
AT: ,,,  
TC: ...aNd?

You sigh, quietly. This is the kind of time when you need the ANAI. It can think of something to say that is pleasant, placating, which will not be remotely the truth. And which will keep everyone happy. You feel glad that it is there, responding to this pale solicitation for you.

AT: aND YOU WILL KILL ME IF I UPSET YOU,  
AT: bECAUSE YOU ARE A TERRIFYING MURDERER,  
AT: aND I AM NOT WORTH YOUR RAPS OR ANYTHING ELSE,,,

The brown text scrolls up the screen while you stare in sudden horror. It lies there, treacherously blinking away.

No, no, no, no!

Gamzee does not respond. You lunge to the husktop and grab it, flicking off the ANAI while breath comes dizzily through your fangs, your expression horrified. How could it do that? How could it betray you?! You sit back in your four wheeled device, running hands through your ragged hair as an ache starts up in your horns.

How could it do that to you?! It is supposed to placate Highbloods, not get them going! Except, you realise, your heart sinking...most highbloods would love getting that kind of fearful message. ANAI is merely doing what it is told. Of course, most highbloods are considerably more balanced than Gamzee, which is in itself terrifying.

Suddenly, the cerulean sign for Vriska lights up in Trollian - and about a minute later, so does Karkat’s grey text.

It takes about half an hour more for teal, then olive to show up. You flick the system into ‘disconnected’ and put up whatever automatic Away message it has while you hyperventilate.

When Gamzee gets upset, people do tend to hear about it. At least, from his shipmates. You have not seen him in the flesh for sweeps now, but given that even your crippled body has gotten taller, you imagine a Capricorn like Gamzee will be terrifyingly strong now. An immense form, with huge horns, impressive control over his powers, and…

CG: HEY ASSHOLE, WHAT DID YOU DO?  
CG: COME ON, I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.  
CG: YOU CAN’T EVEN LEAVE THE FUCKING STATION YOU’RE ON.  
CG: SO PICK UP THE KEYBOARD, NOOKSTAIN.  
CG: COME ON I HAVE GROSS CRYING CLOWN EVERYWHERE.  
CG: AND A FUCKING EVIL SPIDERBITCH.  
CG: DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE IN HERE WITH BOTH OF THEM?!  
CG: DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE, ASSHOLE?  
CG: PICK UP NITRAM.  
CG: HE’S ALREADY BROKEN MY ARM AND KILLED MY ASSISTANT.  
CG: WHICH IS NOT EXACTLY USEFUL.  
CG: BUT IF YOU DON’T GET VRISKA OUT OF MY SHIPBLOCK SO HELP ME GOD, I WILL GET SOLLUX TO TURN ON EVERY CAMERA IN YOUR FUCKING STATION.

You feel frozen. 

You start to type, for the first time in perigrees.

AT: i DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT,  
CG: NO SHIT.  
AT: iT’S NONE, uH, oF YOUR BUSINESS,  
CG: MY ARM IS BROKEN, NITRAM. HOW CAN I GIVE PEOPLE THE MIDDLE CLAW WITH A BROKEN ARM?  
AT: gO AWAY,  
CG: FUCK, HE’S RIGHT. HEY, BIPOLAR SHITTERY IS SOLLUX’S DEAL, NOT YOURS. WHAT’S WITH THE SUDDEN PERSONALITY CHANGE?  
AT: i DON’T, uH, kNOW WHAT YOU MEAN,  
AT: bUT I WANT YOU TO GO AWAY,  
AT: rIGHT, nOW,

It is hard to focus through the panic you feel, but in the back of your head, you hear the sudden hiss and press. The sun is due to ‘rise’ again. You need to have your wheels locked into place so you do not get thrown around the station by the bizarre forces acting in insane ways on a tiny uninhabited planet beneath.

CG: OH, LOOK HOW MUCH I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. LOOK AT ME CALLING SOLLUX RIGHT NOW. SEE, NITRAM, WHEN YOU AREN’T A LITTLE BITCH, PEOPLE DO FAVOURS FOR YOU.

You are trying to wheel away, but the ship pivots. You should have been locked in before this. You are rolled unceremoniously back in front of your computer, because you are never allowed to have good things.

D --> CT: I recommend that you leave Nitram alone, Vantas  
CG: WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK?  
D --> CT: I do not think this is Nitram’s fault.  
CG: ASSHOLE, A PANLEAK KILLED MY AIDE WITH HIS BRAIN. I LIKED THAT GUY.  
D --> CT: Things do not always seem to be as they appear, Vantas. There is no reason to have your language so bl00.  
CG: OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE, YOU’RE PART OF THIS?! DID YOU INFECT HIM WITH YOUR HEMOCASTE FUCKERY?  
CG: OH GOD.  
CG: YOU’RE PAILING HIM, AREN’T YOU?  
D --> CT: ...what  
D --> CT: No He is in a remote station, away from the drones  
D --> CT: This was deliberate To avoid his culling, due to him not having anything below the waist.  
D --> CT: Besides, I have more self respect than that, the suggestion is t00 l00d.

What.

TA: the gro22 2weaty mu2cle-bea2t fucker ii2 riight, vanta2. thii2 ii2n’t niitram’2 fault. well, iit ii2, becau2e he’2 a liittle biitch, liike you 2aiid. but iit’2 mo2tly hii2 toy, eeehee hee.

No! You have to interrupt this! Get it shut down right now! You start typing, frantically. You have to get this stopped before the satellite shifts fully and you are unable to communicate for reasons of being shaken around too much.

AT: SHUT UP ALL OF YOU, AND BE SHUTTING UP NOW,  
CG: WAS THAT A COMEON? YOU STEALING MY QUIRK?  
AT: sHUT UP , i’M SORRY ABOUT GAMZEE AND VRISKA, bUT I SAID THE TRUTH, aND THEY DON’T LIKE IT, oR SPECIFICALLY GAMZEE DIDN’T, i MADE A MISTAKE - YOU CAN READ UP ON HIS HUSKTOP AND -  
TA: let’2 make iit ea2iier - attach: niitramcall2iitliikeiitii2!!!.txt  
CG: WAIT, THAT’S A PRIVATE CHAT, HOW DID YOU GET IT?  
TA: Eeee heee heee hee.  
CG: …  
CG: WELL, FUCK.  
CG: COULDN’T YOU BE A LITTLE NICER TO THE INSANE CLOWN, IDIOT?  
CG: PUT THINGS IN A DIFFERENT WAY, JUST MAYBE?  
CG: MAYBE A LITTLE SYMPATHY FOR THE GUY WITH A BROKEN ARM?  
CG: HAVING TO PLAY NURSEMAID TO PSYCHOS?

The rolling around of your four wheeled device is making you feel seasick. And so, right now, is Karkat, and you really want to respond properly, but it has been so long, and you feel so upset, and Karkat is such a hypocrite. Such a terrible, soul-grinding hypocrite.

AT: I, uH, hAVE A RESPONSE FOR YOU,  
AT: LOOK, i CAN COPY/PASTE IT, fROM ONE OF THE MORE AWFUL PARTS OF MY LIFE, wHICH IS HONESTLY MOST OF THEM,  
AT: IN REGARD TO YOUR INJURY,  
AT: HEY ASSHOLE, STOP PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS.

No one says anything, at all, in response. You feel yourself stinging with triumph and remembered bitterness. Then the Satellite jerks. You missed the warning feeling of the distortion, due to your excitement. You do not miss the kick from the leap, unfortunately - your device is grabbed and tossed sideways, and you fall from it, rolling along the floor. A leg breaks - you can hear it, but not feel it. The sound is disgusting. You are being flung sideways across the floor.

It was probably all still worth it, you think, as you lose consciousness, as the sun and moon spin impossibly about the planet below.


	3. Lord Lispy's Pilot Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tavros does not enjoy his trip.

When you wake up, you feel sort of queasy. Breathless, and your head aches with a pounding discomfort. There is a persistent beeping from Trollian going on, a low level ripple of annoyance that exists as a background throb. You spend some time ignoring it, battering back the nightmares that rise, thick and dim from the background sins of the troll race. Or wherever. You have never been entirely certain, but the fact is you very rarely get a good night’s rest. No one can be bothered fitting a recuperacoon properly for you. You are very thirsty, and you need to use the respite block simultaneously, which is a nasty sensation.

That might be why you feel bad. You are lying on the floor, not in the usual slime, but rather just sort of tangled against the walls. Artificial gravity sure is a thing. Mostly, a useful thing, except right now. There are a few bees lying crushed on the floor, and it appears that the hive inside the main console is partly destroyed. Mostly by your four wheeled device.

Trollian is beeping and beeping and…

...it sure is getting rocky in here. You are finding it very hard to focus. You keep closing your eyes, opening them again, and generally…

...Trollian is not beeping anymore.

“Alternia to Nithram, pick up, or somefing, yeeth.”

You do not recognise the voice. You are fairly certain you have never heard it before. You shake yourself, moaning.

“Thank fuckth. Come on, you threak, get up you athwipe!”

You lift your head a bit, and try to focus. Above you, one of the Satellite cameras makes a whirring noise as the lens shifts and resets on you.

“Oh gooth, you’re thucking thlightly leth than normal. Thop fondling your bulge and wake up!”

“...what?” you manage, and lift a hand to your mouthparts. It comes away a rich, chocolatey brown. Any hopes that you had that you might have been drooling in your sleep are wiped away by how much of this fluid is spread around the room. That and the rainbowed hydraulic lubricant which is everywhere now too. Oh. 

There’s a foot, on that side of the room. You are queasily glad it is robotic, given that it is yours.

“Sollux you fucking waste of air, no one can understand you, give me the voice-thrower -”

“Give it bakth, you ath...athho...athol -”

“Ahahaha, confiscated, by order of the court!”

Oh, that is definitely, absolutely Terezi. The other one is probably Karkat, by the swearing, that continues on into the air behind her loud cackling.

“Okay, Witness Melty Chocolate, can you take the stand and clear your head - you’ve been out for two or three of whatever shenanigans your satellite is up to, and it has been found GUILTY of throwing you against the consoles! Also you are bleeding a lot, so Sollux is piloting the satellite, which is his penance for turning up when Karkles called him!”

“Oh, thor thucks thake.”

“Fucking Jegus, Terezi, give Lord Lispy of the Douche Patrol the voice-thrower back or he’s going to drown us all in spit!!!”

“Denied! Mr. Chocolate, up you get - you are bleeding delicious dessert everywhere and it is a glucose-loaded waste of blood. Sollux -”

“Solluth. His name is Solluth. Respect, Terezi.”

“Thut up you thuckers!”

“-Lord Lispy of the Douche Patrol is arranging your station to land on the planet! Since it is not designed to do this, its landing is going to be what we would call a crash! This is its punishment for turning you into shake n’ bake! So you need to do time - in your ‘coon. And close the lid, so that you have at least a chance of surviving -”

“Yeah, about two perthent.”

It is kind of distracting listening to the three voices going back and forth. As you start to black out once more, Terezi’s becomes ear-splittingly loud. She rouses you, and you start to protest - you can’t move. You just can’t.

Until you glance out your viewport and see the planet getting closer. A lot closer.

Suddenly, you have a serious reason to drag yourself over the tangled surface. There are smears of blood, of hydraulic fluid from your prosthetics, and your horns are aching. Lifting a hand, you find that one has been snapped. The headache that was lurking turns blindingly violent, and you vomit across the floor.

“Fuck me, Terezi, he looks...really shit.”

“Not now, Karkles! Mr. Chocolate! By order of the court, up and into your recuperacoon! GOG DAMN IT NOW, TAVROS!”

You try to move. Your fronds spread, and dig, and pull, and every inch is exhaustion, every line of floor crossed is a reminder that you are useless, paralysed troll. Fortunately, your ‘coon has a ramp up to it, and you can sort of roll and slither and then collapse down. Missing one horn is a peculiar blessing - you can actually fit in the damn thing for once.

“Terezi, his horn’s...entirely off. His horn is off.” You can hear something odd in Karkat’s voice, something that trolls normally never bother with. It sounds like a mixture of guilt and panic. "First he seems to be going stir crazy out here alone, now he's just...like, there's even less of him than there was before Serket got to him. Gamzee's gonna flip his crazy clown shit and we're going to be in for another repeat of -"

“Mr. Dirty Pavement Text, kindly stop interrupting the legislacerator at her business!”

“Terezi, he’th in th’ coon, thith ith it. That fucked up thun is gonna make another round thoon, and I can’th geth thith Apiculture to work if we don’t land it now. I’m thending the thignal to close his ‘coon.”

“Thend the thignal, Mr. Appleberry Blast!”

"Ahahahahahaha!"

“Oh, put a thock in it."

The lid to your recuperacoon closes, and with it goes your ability to hear the three-way argument as it descends into a fight. You are trying to work out why everyone seems to be on the same space ship - last you heard, Terezi was off graduating to the bar, which involves something about hitting people with lumps of lead, you think.

The slime has never felt so good. It closes up over your head, and your spiracles open, absorbing oxygen from the chlorophyll-green liquid. The satellite is complaining, warning systems going off, alarms shrilling, and something something propellant being dumped. You try to focus, but it just makes your head hurt. The boosters are all firing, and the vibration through the entire recuperacoon is jarring.

You have read all of the Station safety manuals, but you are no mathematician. None of it made sense to you, and you always prayed you would never have to do so much as change a fuel cell, let alone calculate anything. 

The whole ‘Coon yanks violently and you are swished against a cushioning bulk of slime. Relief settles through you. This landing was...was not so bad at all.

Then there is another jerk, and another.

You can hear the Satellite giving an unclear screech about the parachutes having been deployed. And you realise, with a sinking sensation, that you have only just entered enough atmosphere to open them. This coma-inducing ride is still relatively gentle by comparison with what is coming. Your satellite has no spacecraft - no wing-holding wrapping around it to ease its catastrophic descent. It barely has a working aeroshell. The reinforced carbon-carbon exterior is, at least, designed to cope with some of the weird fluid dynamics of this system, but you are pretty sure it is not made with a breathable atmosphere in mind.

The buzzing of your computer systems reached a crescendo minutes ago - now the apiculture screams its terror and rage as the bulk of the satellite under the carbon skin begins to anneal under the forces of heat and pressure.

With a sudden, sinking horror you realise that no matter how good Sollux is, there is no possible way this can end well. Satellites cannot ‘land’. The slime is getting hot. You are getting hot.

You have just enough time to contemplate whether you are going to boil or be shattered when you hit...something. 

The noise is apocalyptically loud, an experience rather than a sound. You can feel ribs shatter, metal crumple, as the impact shrieks through you in a way no troll should survive.

Your whole mind whites out for a few blissful seconds, and then, much to your horror, you remain conscious, in burning slime. There are popping sounds.

You reach up to try to push the lid of the ‘coon open, but it is boiling hot to the touch. You can see nothing, and dare not open your eyes to this heat. Pulling your fingers back, you scream and scream, but there is nothing you can do. Your spiracles will sour and fry under this punishment, and then you will drown, and then, and then and then and then and -

You are inverted, you go from on your back in slime inside the ‘coon, to on your front in slime inside the ‘coon. The nauseating effect is no improvement. You continue to panic, and with another stomach-turning flop, you end up the other way around and are spun several times.

With a suddenness that is a shock all by itself, the heat vanishes, entirely. You are driven to silence, wondering if you have suddenly expired. But you can still breathe. Breathe blessedly cool, healing sopor.

Now you can feel the rest of the damage, and you allow yourself a wretched little sob. You are a mess, a mess, it is you.

Outside the gelatinous walls of the ‘coon, you hear a querying noise. Terrified, you say nothing at all, curling yourself up. There are sounds, in a rhythm that sounds a bit like speech. They continue on for a while, and then move into silence. If you could think about it, you might characterise the silence as puzzled.

You take the opportunity to pass out. It seems like the thing to do, frankly.


	4. Alien abduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tavros is kidnapped by a terrifying beast.

There is a flicker of light which fades and then reappears, drumming on the outside of your eyelids. After a further moment, there is something cool against your lips. Investigation shows it to be water. You open your mouth and take several awkward swallows, then let it settle in your stomach. A tense few minutes pass, and you decide you are not going to throw up. 

Though you suddenly discover intense thirst, the water is provided only in slight sips, a continual supply as a little trickle. You slowly open your eyes (they ache. Everything aches), and find yourself sitting up with a faint pinkish glow supporting you. The water is being held in something flexible and white that shapes itself to your mouth. 

You are not - quite - touching the ground.

You can focus, sort of, on on a raw red plain, a jagged thing with occasional obsidian eruptions that arch out into a blue and empty sky. A barren, open desert of rock that extends to each horizon, only interrupted by spatterings of greenish sopor slime and a large amount of Satellite debris everywhere. The slime has drag marks through it, but is otherwise simply spattered from your oozing recuperacoon. Dead bees are scattered all over the rocks, and a few that survived crawling aimlessly across the broken honeycomb of their network. You do not think they can survive in this state.

It is daylight, and you start to cringe, because it is simply way too bright, but you are not burning, not right now. The light still feels unpleasant on your injuries, and you cringe a little, trying to curl to instinctively protect yourself. You feel like the most meagre of grubs.

There is a soft, hesitant voice, and you turn your head to focus, and blink.

It is a hoofbeast. Not as large as many of the Alternian types that you have seen, and entirely the wrong colour - instead of being the uniform lusus white, this one is a pale lavender. It has cloven hooves almost entirely hidden under a wash of completely silken fur that runs up sturdy legs to a curve of belly and then up into the arch of an equine neck. There is almost no musculature visible - the fur is long in some sections, shorter in others, creating an illusion of velvet that is entirely smooth. A long mane and tail are likewise perfectly groomed, in a range of purple and pink colours. It appears to be a mammal, a female one from the restrained sex characteristics visible. The face is remarkably smooth, with very large purple eyes and a quite startling level of mobility in expression for a hoofbeast.

It has a horn, coloured the same precise shade as its coat, and a pair of blunted feathery wings with about the same proportion as a tinkerbull’s, though the proportions look entirely wrong for flight to you.

It neighs.

The thing appears to be trying to communicate, so you lift your hands to your head to focus with your powers, hesitantly lowering them with a wince as pain sears through your head from your broken horn. Nothing happens, at all. Not even a flicker of consciousness. You can dimly sense smaller lives, tiny things, the expiring bees, but nothing from this. The sensation is agonising, twisting through the jagged ruin of your horn, so you stop, as quickly as possible. There is startlingly little life out in this desert, and certainly not enough vegetation to sustain a hoofbeast of this size.

The water container is shaken in an enquiring way within the pink glow that levitates it, and you recognise the prickle of psionic powers - not to mention the glow from the hoofbeast’s horn. 

Oh. It isn’t an animal, really at all, is it? You can’t communicate with other trolls, or with aliens, and this thing seems to count as an alien. You are nervous of it, drawing back, but its expression is mild - if anything, worried. So you nod, and it cautiously puts the water cup in your hands, allowing you to drink at your own speed.

You watch it, warily, as it examines you, sniffing a little, and pursing its lips. Its wings half spread and flicker, and then it raises a hoof to its mouth, for all the word like Vriska planning something. A sudden grin appears on its face, and it leans its head back to open the saddlebags on its back and it levitates out a paper scroll and a quill pen, then writes something cursively and displays it. Without a doubt, the thing is intelligent. 

You shake your head, unable to read it.

The hoofalien frowns, and then offers you the pen and scroll, which you take awkwardly through the pink field that is holding your battered body off the rocks.

You write hesitantly: My name is Tavros Nitram. In Alternian, of course.

The hoofalien takes the objects back and nods, satisfied, then rolls the scroll back up and tucks it away, leaving you puzzled, before it...no, she, claps her hooves together like a pleased child and emits a delighted noise. The querying goes on and on, and no matter how puzzled you look, she continues to talk to you, then gesture to herself.

After a while, you realise the thing is clearly monologuing, and you are just a bystander. You sit there, listening in mild fascination as she goes on and on, clapping her front hooves together as she sits back on her hind feet. Sometimes her wings flare out to emphasise a point.

Ignoring her, you touch your ribs and groan, deeply. Everything hurts. The hoofalien’s expression immediately turns to sympathy and she hesitantly lowers you to the ground. That makes you grimace, but you feel a little better with something under your feet as you try to stand. She looks up and down your body, startled for whatever reason, and then gestures to your chest, and you shrug a little. Looking at your burned hands and talons, you grimace.

A grim expression crosses her face, and she gestures up - towards your broken horn. You shrug again, though cautiously lift a hand up to touch the damage. It is entirely ruined. You are not sure, but you think that it is quite easy to die from such an injury - horns are bone, and connected to the skull, and this is an open wound. Your eyes are beginning to water, with unshed tears collecting, and suddenly a cloth, levitated up is dabbing at your face.

Unsolicited pale affection from an alien is the last straw, and you sit down heavily, burying your head - carefully - in your arms, and attempting to ignore everything. You push the cloth away, and look up in time to see the most pitiable expression on her face. She is soliciting you!

Oh God. It’s true! Aliens are the terrifying perverts that Alternian literature says they are! You recoil, trying to indicate with your flailing hands that, no, no no. You are not. You are not interested in having a pile! Definitely not in your state - and definitely not with an alien! In fact, definitely not with ANYONE. Ever.

That realisation makes you hesitate. No, not anyone - because there are no trolls on this planet, no one but you. No Moirails, no Kismesis, no Matesprit, no Auspistice…

Yes, that is absolutely the best way to be safe! You are the genius! It is you!

No connections! Nothing! No betrayals, no friends! No more getting thrown off cliffs because someone was trying to do...what the hell was Vriska trying to do anyway?! And then that whole mess with the ghosts and Aradia and Sollux, and…

...but no one knows you survived! No one knows you are here. You are safe, and this alien is probably not going to eat you or even paw at you as long as you keep shaking your head and gesturing her away. This is wonderful. You can be completely alone, forever!

Sudden hysterical glee has you leaping up and running around madly.

You are part of the way through a good bout of troll-triumphant-laughter, complete with punching the sky with your fist in victory, when you notice the alien eyeing you very oddly.

Then the pink glow comes out, and despite your protests, she simply levitates you up off the ground, and begins to trot off over the broken ground, talking to herself and shaking her head.

“Hey! HEY! Let me, uh, if you could - maybe, you know, let me. Down? Uh…”

She ignores your slurred voice, her ears canted forward as she trots off with an expression of great determination on her face.

Oh Gog. You are totally going to get probed.


	5. You suck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having made first contact, Tavros establishes...well, okay, the ALIEN opens communication channels.

It is kind of boring, which is not what you thought being kidnapped by an alien would be like. The creature is trotting with a mile-eating pace rather than galloping or flying, and when she gets tired, as she does occasionally, she simply sits down and levitates out something from her saddlebags that looks a hell of a lot like a grubwich to you. Its contents appear to be lettuce and carrots. After that, she eats an apple. You are offered water frequently, but not food for some reason. Which is fine by you, because it is a very worrying thing that so many things here - such as apples - look like their counterparts on Alternia.

You move through the apocalyptic landscape with its hellish appearance, being bubbled along by a very specific type of levitation that puts no pressure at all on your wounds. You are getting a worse and worse headache, and the area around your broken horn feels horribly hot. It is a miserable thing, but at least there are no flies so you can probably die from infection peacefully. It would not be so terrible except that after a few hours, you need to use the loadgaper.

She glances back at you after you start calling to her, and you gesture awkwardly. Her head tilted, the alien stares, puzzled, and then offers you more water.

Finally your expression is so embarrassed and so intent that she seems to realise what you want. She delicately lowers you to the ground and, well. Projects...a large solid plane of blackness for you to stand behind. This is a bit of a relief, as given her appearance, you had been worried you might be expected to relieve yourself in front of her.

Finished, it is an equal relief when she offers you water to clean up with, and you are able to sit down for a while some distance from the spot. She is very quiet, watching you, and suddenly she gestures to herself and makes a series of noises. They sound a little like neighing. Equius would be in heaven. 

She repeats this, until you attempt to make the sound, and then seems pleased, but it is all a jumble of sounds to you - Twhhhiinnyyyysssppaarrrrhinnyhinny. Then she points her cloven hoof delicately at you and you say cautiously “Tavros.”

“Tahhhhvrissss!” she whinnies.

Eugh. Like Vriska?

“Tavros.”

And this time she says “Tavros!” precisely. 

You smile “Yeah. That’s me.”

She lifts the water, and you say “Water,” as she does so.

“Tavros water?” she asks, offering it, and you shake your head.

“No water, um, please.”

“No. No. No? Um? Please?”

“No water,” you simplify it, pushing the water back.

“Ah! No!” and she points to herself “No Tavros!” And then to you and says “No - “ and her name.

You nod and smile “That is a thing that is definitely what no means.”

She considers, tapping her foot, then taps her horn, and gestures at yours cautiously.

“Horn,” you respond.

“Tavros horn,” she says, pointing at yours, then points at hers “Twhhhiinnyyyysssppaarrrrhinnyhinny horn!”

“Yes!” you say, and she fixes you quickly with her eyes and says “Yes! Yes no water.”

She is frighteningly smart, because you are definitely most completely certain that you could not pick up words so quickly - or work out from context what they mean the way she is doing. You nod, and she claps her hooves together, then gets up and steps back.

She flares her wings, and closes her eyes tightly, and grits her teeth. As she exposes them, you see that the canines are slightly longer than they would have been on a tinkerbull. Effort paints itself across her face and she appears to be struggling, though nothing is happening at all. You wait.

Suddenly, there is a tiny spark from the tip of her horn, and she struggles as it spits and dribbles purplish light. Her feathers stand up on end and her wings strain with sudden flapping, and then there is a sharp ‘Pop’ sound. She relaxes back and then watches you expectantly.

You spread your hands “Ummm, I’m sorry but I -”

“Wonderful, it worked!” she says brightly in Alternian. 

You stare. 

“Oh, I know that technically I’m going to fail this test, but now we understand one another, and I don’t think that the test was meant to be about a resculler mission anyway, because you certainly seem a bit messed up! Well, now you can tell me everything about yourself and what ship you come from - I’ve never, ever seen a Tinkerbull quite like you, you know, you’re a bit small for one, and I’m very sorry about your legs, I’m sure we have someone who can fix them, but they do look very complex! Wow, you sure are tough, look at how burned and messed up you are, and you’re still able to stand even on those strut pods, you must be -”

You are unable to get anything in as the wall of words cascades down around you.

“- sorry about that, but I had to have some sample words and consonants before a translation spell was even possible, wow do you guys have a lot of words for hitting things! I’m finding it kind of hard to find the words for myself, actually, since you don’t have...the word for that or that or that or...that’s odd -”

Now you are starting to wave, to try to get her attention. Magic is definitely fake, but you know psionics when you see them, even if you are not sure how they would work with translating languages. Maybe Vriska would know something about it.

“-carnivore, I assume, with THOSE teeth, which is hilarious because in the old stories Tinkerbulls were carnivores, though your face is kind of. Odd for a Tinkerbull. And they're herbivores now. And you don’t have hooves, you sort of have paws. Hmm.” Her look is expectant.

“I’m a troll,” you say, cautiously.

“Oh! A ‘troll’! What, legends of those big terrifying monsters that kill everything are about people like you?” her face acquires a puzzled look “Oh dear, the books are quite incorrect. You look nice. I'll get them updated just as soon as I get back to Canterlot.”

“No, umm, if the books are about giant horned murderers then they are probably right, I am just, uh, not very good at being a troll, or, uh, anything else,” you mutter, nervously hunching your shoulders up “I’m a juvenile, technically, still, so I’m not as large as I’ll get later if I live, which...never mind.” You hesitate. “You think I look nice?”

A gentle expression appears on her face “Oh, yes! You seem very nice! Even though you are so horribly hurt, you haven’t tried to lash out or anything, and even though you have those sharp teeth, you haven’t been threatening to me, and you tried to say my name - which is Twilight Sparkle, by the way. My goodness, you're just a colt?”

Magic is fake. Magic is totally fake. Even that name sounds fake, but pleasantly like something out of a Pupa Pan story.

“Er, I am nearly an adult. That is a very, uh, pretty-fairy-type name.”

“Thankyou! And yours is Tavros, correct? I’m afraid I don’t know what to do about your horn.”

“Uh, probably nothing, as I probably have an infection already, and am going, uh, to probably die,” you say dolefully. It is hard to feel good right now “Also from the burns, and, uh, internal injuries, and my legs are all broken, so I guess maybe don’t put yourself out?”

She stares at you in horror “What?!”

“Well, uh, I’m, uh, not feeling great to be honest, and injured trolls don’t survive long.”

“Why not?”

“Other trolls, um, mostly.”

“Oh,” she says, cautiously “Forgive me for being so rude, but are you dangerous?”

Such an obvious, innocent question, so you have to answer it honestly, even if it would be very wonderful for someone to think you are dangerous. No one ever does.

“Not very. I am kind of, uh, bad at being a troll, like I said, and, uh, I have already been lucky a few too many times, and, er. That is all. Basically. I am the worst, the worst, it is me. My aggravation sponge doesn't really work and never has. I should be dead, because everyone would probably be happier. I suck.”

Her eyes actually tear up. You feel horribly uncomfortable. You are so terrible even aliens feel awful in your presence.

“That’s it. I am going to cancel the test now!” And she lifts a hoof up and draws it in a circle about herself, utterly determined “We’re going to Hoofbeasttown right now! I have a friend who can help you, and - wait. Hoofbeasttown? I guess you don’t have a word for Hoofbeast. For...ahaha. Okay, you really don't have a word for what I am. Well, there is a Hospittle there. Hos...spittle? Eew.”

“Uh, medicullers are going to just precycle me,” you state "So why bother?"

She pauses, drawing her air circles for a moment “...no. We don’t do that, Tavros.” She takes a breath, and suddenly there is a shimmery blinding space before you, between her cloven hooves “Hoofbeasts don’t do that sort of thing at all.”

And as the magic...psionics rip a tear in reality, she says to you conversationally “So what does ‘you suck’ imply? Because I’m getting no translation for that whatsoever.”

“Um,” you say.


	6. Medicullers

It was sometime after your accident - the whole cliff event that feels like it has defined your life - that you found yourself on Equius’ table. The blue blood was working on your new set of legs, and you were drugged up to the absolute gills. Assuming you had them, which you did not.

The drugging was because you were weak and annoying and kept screaming most of the time. Kanaya was trying to do you a favour, indeed, many of them were. Well, alright. You figure Kanaya was trying to do you a favour, but Equius was mostly just staring and watching your legs get cut off. Gamzee was sort of excited in an equally weird way.

You have absolutely no idea what was going on there with Equius - he did not seem to be taking pleasure in it, or any form of mediculler interest. Maybe he just liked to watch lowbloods get mutilated by someone a bit higher on the spectrum, even a midblood like Kanaya?

Likewise, you never did really get the whole chainsaw thing - Kanaya always seemed absolutely graceful and feminine and then this huge chainsaw thing would come out and…

Now that you think about it, Terezi and Vriska are not exactly ‘feminine’ what with the licking and violence, and Aradia was lovely, but really liked dead things and digging holes in mud, and Feferi was cute, but could sort of drag entire whales around…

If you had to pick ‘stereotypically feminine’, you decide that it would mostly be Eridan or you. And even Eridan had better legs, but admittedly, that was not hard.

Gender sure is a complex thing and you hope that if you survive and pupate it will make a lot more sense. But seeing how adult trolls act you are basically sure that the idea anyone has a clue is a complete load of hoofbeast manure.

Equius’ table was steel, and cold, and had gutters for blood or motor oil. It had buckets for limbs or shattered robots. It was your bed for three nights while he connected the robotic legs.

The bed you are in now looks soft, though there is some sort of plasticised sheet under you that can be changed regularly. It is a bit on the large side and has several complex pulley systems around it, which you guess is for supporting and turning an injured quadrupedal patient. You are being treated differently - burns victims seem to be put under a levitation sp...ell? Spell. You are going to have to call them spells for the moment, you guess. They are very sparkly. You are hovering just off the bed in a dimly sparkly, poofy cloud and you feel no pain.

Most of the ‘staff’ are pastel-coloured hoofbeasts, some with horns, some without. None of the ones inside have wings, though you have seen one outside flying past the window regularly, apparently some sort of patient courier service. That one is strong enough to lift a stretcher. The staff have uniforms, white coats with red symbols, and also white masks over their muzzles, some with stretchy sections if they have to manipulate devices with their agile tongues and teeth. They seem concerned with cleanliness, a bit more than most troll medicullers you have ever met. All of them also have symbols painted onto their flanks, most of them different to one another.

They cannot communicate with you, but it turns out they are remarkably good at working by gestures and pictures - evidently they are used to dealing with a range of species, not just their own, and this necessitates some ability with mime.

You wish Twilight Sparkle was present to translate, but she seems to be very important - not that surprising, considering her coat colour. She probably has business to attend to, and it has not escaped your notice that some of the hoofbeasts bow to her in her presence. She always looks faintly disturbed by this.

At least your room is private, and they have tuned the humidity and temperature to suit your tastes, and lowered the light, allowing your eyes to properly see. You prefer it darker than most of the hoofbeasts, a lot darker. And you like it warmer.

There was a lot of discussion along with communication efforts and several aborted magical spells, then a saline drip. Most of your leg works have been disconnected, and the supportive fluids clamped off with the assistance of a very puzzled hoofbeast mechanic who himself had one robotic leg. Food occasioned a vast amount of trouble - the creatures served you vegetables, but you are tightly carnivorous, and they have ended up resorting to fish.

You do not really like fish, and also, some of your teeth are broken.

The eventual list of injuries went on and on, difficult to put forward in mime. Ribs, teeth, a broken arm you had not noticed, fractures, sprains, bruises, internal injuries, internal bleeding, a broken horn. The pictures the mediculler sketched with his mouth were grim. Yet you are alive - trolls are very tough, and in all honesty, being given food and painkillers and hydration is helping you a lot. Not having other trolls around is also helping a lot.

Not being near other trolls is wonderful.

You have been asleep, on and off, and you are somewhat aware that some internal parts have been stitched or glued back together. It is much nicer than most mediculler work - all those painkillers, all those soft, almost seductively moirail-toned words. The care and tenderness.

You feel intensely jealous of these soft creatures with their velvety fur and huge, liquid eyes, their warm fairy-tale colours and cute symbols. They have perfect manes and tails and expressive faces, and they care for each other with embarrassing openness that implies some sort of perverted moiralamory.

You cannot believe the empress has not stomped them out of existence. After the x-rays, you really cannot conceive of it - they clearly have radio technology at the very least, so how on alternia are they able to hide so effectively? They are very strong, but their bodies have no perceptible armour, whereas an adult troll has supportive bones and leathery carapaces. And they do not appear to carry weapons or show any martial urges at all.

It is pointless thinking, while you feel so fuzzy and good, though. It is pointless really bothering about anything.

It is nice to not be in pain, and not be dying, and to not care about anything. You allow yourself to float, warm. There is a private ablution block, although washing is not permitted, possibly due to the risk of infection with the burns. But the whole being able to hide as you want, to an extent, is pleasant. 

It might have been two or three nights. The lack of clarity in your mind has rendered focusing impossible.

There is a knock on your door, and to your mild surprise,Twilight Sparkle enters with a yellow hoofbeast that has wings, pink hair, and flutterbee symbols on her flanks. The yellow one is hiding her face in her hair, and quaking, while Twilight Sparkle forces her in, using her hind hooves to push. The yellowish one is saying something in a tremulous voice, and Twilight Sparkle sounds exasperated.

The noises are animal, whinnying, musical, but indecipherable. You are sort of watching, vaguely aware that you are helpless, naked, and unable to move.

Twilight forces the yellow pony in, hooking a leg around her wings to force her to stay inside. Her horn glows and trails of actinic light spark as the room lights up. Suddenly, their words are comprehensible to you. Another of your rescuer’s ‘special effects’ in action, you suppose.

“But I couldn’t possibly!”

“Fluttershy, just. Just try, alright?”

“But he’s a Minotaur! You know how I feel about Minotaurs!”

You have heard that hoofbeast-word enough to realise they mean Tinkerbull when they say it - evidently Tinkerbulls rather more dangerous than the sort you usually meet. Or maybe larger, since you cannot really see even a small hoofbeast having issue with your tiny lusus type.

“I don’t think so, Fluttershy, and in any case, he’s badly hurt and needs our he-”

“Badly hurt?”

She peers up at you from under her pink fringe, and you look back, blinking your brown eyes.

Her hooves fly up to her mouth “Oh, no! What happened to your muzzle?!”

“Er, this is, basically, my normal face,” you say, embarrassed “But it is not, er, the worst...face in the fleet? I think.”

“Look at you - you poor, poor thing!” Her wings spread and she hovers up near your head, staring at you “What happened to you?!”

“His spaceship crashed, which you are not telling anypony,” Twilight says, standing a little behind “The injury list is on the wall, but we don’t know what he is, so it’s pretty hard to treat him - he doesn’t correspond to any bovine - or dragon - blood type we have. If he wasn’t so tough he’d be dead.”

‘Pony’ is a pretty highblood word to hear tossed around, but Twilight Sparkle is Capricorn purple. Fluttershy is staring at you, wings slowly beating, hanging in the air in the way that no one should. You have seen hovering before, but only with tiny creatures and terribly fast wing beats. She just floats. Then she ducks, and peers underneath you, before flying up higher, and wrinkling her nose as she turns around and around to examine you from every angle. Apparently there is no nakedness taboo here. You feel exposed.

She is shaking her head as she examines your thorax around where your grubscars are“Can I see the x-rays, Twilight?”

The other hoofbeast levitates the files to her, and she peers at them. She flips through them, examining to your horror, a series of very personal, close up photos of all sorts of parts of you. You must have been unconscious. Then she lands and says “Oh, no, of course he can’t take blood from mammals.”

Twilight blinks, and so do you. Mammal?

“What?”

“He’s an insect,” she says.

“What, really?!”

“Well. I mean. Mostly? He has mammalian - and reptilian - characteristics, but mostly he is an insect. His abdomen is not like that of most insects, but he clearly has a thorax - pro, meso and meta, with a leg pair set at each, though, uh, did something happen to your middle ones?”

“Umm, they fall off after our first major pupation?” it feels like an exam.

Her eyes light up “Oh, how interesting! You aren’t like us!”

You nod uncertainly “I am not, uh, like you, no. Exactly? It’s complex.”

Twilight looks skeptical “Your species lays eggs?”

“Er, yes? No. I mean, sort of. I mean, I definitely, do not do that thing, on account of being a male. And a troll.”

The two hoofbeasts look at each other, confused, as Fluttershy says “Do you have a Queen?”

“Er, no, but we have an Empress.”

“So you are a bit like bees?” she presses, fascinated. You feel utterly out of your depth and somewhat discomforted by her - trapped, injured, and vulnerable.

“Yes. Wait. No. Yes?” Troll biology has always been a bit complex for you, and, you suspect, for everyone else involved as well.

“Maybe it’s the language barrier,” Twilight says, “Are you a drone?”

Now both of them are bubbling over with questions you are too ill to dodge. You decide to try to answer in depth to forestall more.

“No, er, that is, we have a...few symbiotic relationships with other species we need to reproduce?” You have been thinking about this on and off for years “A Mother Grub lays eggs, that hatch into wigglers. Eventually, we spin a cocoon and then hatch out of that, and we then, uhhh, meet our Lusii - giant white monsters? Which care for us until we are ready to pupate into adults. Adult trolls. After that, we often go through a few more stages, but I am, sort of, uh, locked at my current one as I have had a lot of injuries in my life, and have, er, an almost entirely artificial abdomen.”

“So the Empress is the Mother Grub?” Twilight asks. You wince.

“Noo, uhhhh, the Empress is our mostly amazingly terrifying leader who is sort of the oldest, most dangerous female troll. She kills the other heiresses.”

“So you are like bees?”

Now your head is spinning. The yellow one seems to notice.

“Twilight, I don’t think you’re going to be able to put him into a category we have,” Fluttershy says firmly “He is his own wonderful thing, and our focus right now is on helping him get better.”

“But how does a different species lay eggs that hatch into trolls?” Twilight says, exasperated “Is she - the Grub - like...a troll in neoteny?! I mean, if...Tavros, if you wanted to have a...a baby, what would you do?”

“Er,” you say cautiously, having been utterly convinced they were vegetarian up until this very moment “Uhhhh, what would I do with a baby? Anyway, I can’t. Uh. Contribute. Stuff. Genetics. Thing.”

“Oooh, she’s a virgin queen...you’re all identical, then, if there’s no genetic selection?” Twilight says, puzzled, and you feel your face heating up. You are not ready for this now, or indeed, at any other time.

“No, uhhhh, we...are supposed to. Take part in reproduction as adults, but I would like to not talk about that, for many reasons, such as the fact I cannot do it because of past injuries, and also because I am very confused about how I feel about it.”

Vriska is dating Gamzee. Everyone here is a polypale pervert hoofbeast. Wow. Imagine how Equius would react if he knew there was an entire planet of those.

You wish you had not imagined that a moment later.

You are so embarrassed, you hide behind your hair, and then you see Fluttershy looking at you, and saying “...you are so sweet. How did I ever think you were an awful thing? Look at you. Twilight? I’m going to go and talk to the doctors and get a veterinarian and an apiarist to consult with. Oooh!”

She claps her hooves together suddenly, looking both determined and frightened “Twilight! I know someone we’ve met before who is part mammal and part insect!”

You see the purple hoofbeast go pale around the mouth.

“Fluttershy!”

“I know! But we have to be brave, don’t we? She might help - I’ll get Discord to back us up! With him, we’ll be quite safe! And you. You’re an alicorn, after all.”

“But Queen Chrysalis?!”

“I...would rather just rest,” you say in a small voice “I don’t feel up to seeing a Tyrian.” Chrysalis sounds like a nice, friendly name, but you are terribly tired from all of this.

Fluttershy sinks back down and she folds her wings back “Well, the doctors say you are healing very well - they said you seemed to be regenerating. What about your horn?”

“That...won’t come back. But things like teeth will. If I live.”

“I think we still need to confer with others, I’m very worried about your lower carapace being so distorted from all the injuries,” she says, fussing “But you won’t die. The horn…”

“It’s a focal point for his spell usage,” Twilight interrupts “Like mine is, I could feel some distortion around him. We need to get it fixed.”

“You can do that?”

“A pony can live missing a leg, or eyes even,” Twilight says firmly “But we try to intervene if a pegasus won’t be able to fly, or an earth pony have enough strength to do what they want. You clearly have horns on your symbol, so we’ll make sure they get fixed. I’m going to fly to Canterlot, Fluttershy. Princess Celestia needs to hear about this. And the spaceship.”

Fluttershy nods “I’ll get the rest of the mares to come and visit - oh Twilight, please can you just...make that translation spell last a bit longer?”

Twilight nods “I’ll do it. Tavros?”

“Yes?” 

“Are there any other trolls who are going to come looking for you?”

You think about it. You are not sure. You want to say yes, from the way they were interacting with you...but the satellite’s wreckage is spread over a huge area, and you have no way of contacting them, as far as you know. You were too addled to remember your husktop at the crash. You are a terrible troll - you cannot imagine Sollux making such a mistake.

You are a terrible troll, and they all know you are.

“No.”


End file.
